Part 1 of The Busy Engineer’s Guide to Data Governance

You don’t need to rebuild your facility to move it forward.

For most operations—especially in life sciences, food and beverage, water utilities, and oil & gas—the challenge isn’t starting fresh, it’s making sense of the systems you already have. That’s where data governance becomes critical.

What Is Data Governance?

At its core, data governance is about making your data reliable, consistent, and usable across teams and systems.  In life sciences, you often here the concepts of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) or ALCOA+ (Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original, Accurate + Complete, Consistent, Enduring, and Available).  These terms are goals but they are realized using Data Governance.

In brownfield environments, good data integration and contextualized information that is readily usable for transformational process improvements is rarely a given. You’re often dealing with:

• Legacy systems from different eras
• Custom tag structures no one fully understands
• Siloed data that doesn’t flow between platforms

Without Data Governance, even basic tasks like audits, reporting, or troubleshooting become harder than they need to be.

Why Brownfield Makes Governance a Must

Brownfield sites weren’t designed with interoperability in mind. Over time, siloed equipment and software build up—without a clear interoperable strategy for interoperability.

That’s why governance is a necessary foundational element. It helps you:

• Standardize what you already have
• Build trust in your data
• Set the stage for upgrades, digital twins, and analytics
• Reduce reliance on tribal knowledge

And no, you don’t need to rip everything out to start.

Common Myths (and What to Do Instead)

Myth –> Reality

“We’ll fix it when we upgrade.” –> Bad data will follow you into new systems.

“We’ve always done it this way.” –> Until the one person who knows how it works retires.

“This is IT’s job.” –> Everyone touches the data—engineering, ops, and maintenance too.  Data deserves a separate and equal seat at the table.

Where to Start

Even without a big budget or overhaul, you can:

• Inventory your data sources and systems
• Spot inconsistencies in naming or structure
• Clarify who owns what data
• Apply standards to establish governance.

Coming Up Next

In Part 2, we’ll break down the key standards that make governance easier—like ISA-95, ISO 81346, and OPC UA—and how to choose what best fits your facility.